2017/03/31

Wow, it's time for a new blog team blog post. Time goes by so fast! Or months, however, you want to put it. For you, who don't know what this whole blog team means - it's basically a little group of bloggers who are doing monthly posts about the same topic. This month, our topic is about tips for new bloggers. About what to consider when starting a blog or, you know - the basic stuff.

If you want to take a closer look at our group, check out the introduction post I did last year. Also, this is the only time of the month when I'm also writing in Finnish. So now when we've got all these blah blah's out of our system, let's roll on to the post!

2017/03/27

It's so fun to look back at these pictures from the day we brought Dino home for the first time. It was so overwhelming and all the emotions I went through that day were well, overwhelming too. It was the day when I finally got into the realisation that this was it, it's our baby and he's going to live with us.

2017/03/26

I can't believe that our little bundle of joy is 1-month-old today. Imagine, we've managed to keep a baby alive for one whole month. Okay, just kidding. Keeping a baby alive is not quantum physics. Just keep him fed, change his diapers, keep him in clean clothes, talk to him and spend time with him when he's awake and when he falls asleep just keep checking on him every five minutes so he won't stop breathing. Wait, what? Okay, sarcasm on that last one is going strong, but with all the things I said before I was serious. We've had such a fun first month!

2017/03/22

Just to let you know, having a baby in Winter is pretty interesting. You'll get that wake-up call a month before your due date and realise that it actually is; Winter. Winter means that it's cold outside. Winter means that there's snow outside and the snow outside means that oh, baby it's cold outside. That's something that didn't cross our minds before at the end of the January, sounds pretty ridiculous now when thinking about it later - but at the end of the January, I started to look for snowsuits for babies. Guess what? There wasn't any. Why? Because Spring collections had arrived and all the small sizes had already sold out or there just wasn't any because yeah, the Spring collections have arrived to everywhere.

So, I started googling for different options and that's how I came across this adorable Baby's Only Footmuff Maxi-Cosi warm bag for the safety seat. It looks great and it's pretty useful when thinking about it. You know, during the Winter it's absolutely wonderful for car drives and shopping purposes. Just put your baby in the warm bag and you're good to go. There's no need to wrap the baby with seven layers of clothing for a long car ride or little food shopping trip - just put the baby in the bag and if it gets hot in there, open the bag. Gosh, I love that thing, not to mention how easy it is to leave the house quickly when you can put your baby in the bag and head out.

At this point, I should probably mention that this is not a sponsored post because I feel like I'm starting to sound like I'm selling these. No, I'm just way too excited about how convenient this bag is. It makes life so much easier.

Above, you'll see how it looks inside. The baby can still be strapped in, even though the bag is there - which obviously is a good thing. Wouldn't want to see a flying baby in a bag in a car accident. (Okay, that joke was a bit lame, I'm just going to leave it there.)

2017/03/20

- Evangelic Lutheran tradition.
When you're 15-year-old and if you're a part of the church, you go to confirmation camp/school and learn stuff like the Ten Commandments (which no one really remembers after the whole thing) and Heavenly Father prayer. If you pass, you get your wine and bread and you're blessed. In a nutshell. It's an Evangelic Lutheran tradition. Believer or not, most of the Finns who are part of that religion go there and learn those things. I went there too, seven years ago. Holy shit that was a long time ago. All I can remember is that the camp had the most delicious bread I've ever eaten.

We're not crazy religious family. Or well, we're not religious at all. My grandmother goes to church every Christmas and myself and mum are finding excuses not to go there. That's all our family invests in these things. Then again, we are part of the church just because we are. In real life, we don't give a shit about those things. With all the taxes we pay for the church, we're basically paying our spots at the graveyard. And well, having the wedding at the church because it's kind of cool.

I mean, I heard that my uncle scrolled through his phone at the church and when the people were supposed to get up, he didn't. Or well, at least at that very second. Oh my, we had a good laugh with that. He's so freaking funny dude.

Anyways, we got to spend a weekend over at my mum's place and it was so much fun. Dino had his first long car ride (2,5 hours) and everything went well. I mean, he slept the whole way there and back so it was pretty chill. When we were coming back he had moved in such a weird position on his car seat so I was a bit worried if he's going to survive (what was I thinking, of course, he survived) but we got home safely.

We also got to go to sauna together with J after two weeks not being together alone and that was pretty amazing. I mean, with a baby you're never alone. He's there, all the time. That's nice and all, but it's also great to have some 'alone' time together with the other half.
Oh, and I almost forgot! My mum & grandma looked after Dino through the whole night so we got to get a good night sleep after two weeks. I was a bit worried how Dino will survive and I had a trouble getting sleep but when I saw him in the morning I noticed that I had been on my "nervous mummy" mode through the whole night for no reason.

The party went fine and it was so nice to see all the relatives I don't get to see that often. Although, most talked topics were Dino, sleeping and not getting any sleep, diapers and my pregnancy weight gain and how my belly is completely gone and I don't look like I gave a birth couple of weeks ago.

On Saturday when we arrived, we went to Puuvilla shopping centre and I found that pretty bodysuit with a bow for Dino for the party. He was such a handsome little fella!
And we also took our traditional selfie picture with my little brother, damn - when did he grew up?

2017/03/19

I finally got my hands on this shaving soap I wanted to try out for ages! How? Well, J got it for Christmas for me. I'm so happy it was in stock when he was making the order because every time I tried to place it in my shopping basket - it was always out of stock.

I need to start by saying that I'm not that good at shaving my legs. I mean, I've never owned a proper shaving gel not to mention a shaving soap so I had no expectations when I first tried this out. After few uses, I was sure I had found the perfect shaving soap. Although, I've got nothing else to compare it to, but this is definitely one I'm going to keep in my pampering routine essentials.

It smells so good. It includes strawberries and its scent is quite strong and I definitely love everything about strawberries. Oh my goodness, Summer is getting closer and closer and that means that strawberries are getting closer and closer. How many times it's appropriate to use the word "closer" in one sentence?

This one leaves my legs to feel so silky, smooth and moisturised. I absolutely love this.

2017/03/17

I've had this massive need to do little changes around this apartment for these last few months. I don't know if it's because the Spring is just around the corner or is it because I've been on a complete nesting mood during the last weeks of the pregnancy. Also, my hubby has done his part helping me out with my ideas and I'm so thankful for that. Or well, maybe he was afraid that I'd throw a pizza at him if he didn't want to help? Haha, just kidding.

We have had our dining table for three years now. It was something we bought when we moved from our 30 square meter apartment to a bigger apartment where we were able to actually fit a dining table. Now, when there will be more people over the dining table at some point, we've become to a realisation that some day - we're going to need to buy a bigger one. So far, this has been perfect for our purposes. If you want to see how this table looked before we did this little makeover to it - click here.

This actually is not the first time I've used dc-fix to make some changes in our apartment. In 2015, I dc-fixed our kitchen and bathroom. We lived in that apartment for over a year and because of stuff that was happening in my life at that moment when I started the bathroom project I never actually finished it. Which is kind of weird, I usually finish all the projects that I start. Anyhow, I love how dc-fix is so easy to use and it brings a whole different look to places where it's used. It's also very cheap, so that's a huge plus too.

So, returning back to this dining table. I was a bit concerned to use marble dc-fix for the very first time. I've recently fallen in love with marble - I know, three years late from the boom as always - and for me, the hardest decision at this was to choose between these two shades of marble. I really liked the darker one but then again I felt it would look a bit too edgy for a dining table so we ended up choosing the lighter one. I'm really happy that we chose the lighter one, it looks so much better, to be honest.

I'm so happy with the change. Okay yeah, that's only a freaking 40€ Ikea dining table but it feels like it's completely different. Literally feels like we have bought a new dining table, which is great. New dining table for a little bit over 10€ - not bad at all haha!

By the way, you should definitely check out Dora's blog for more dc-fix inspiration. She was the reason I got interested in dc-fixing and I really got inspired by her 20€ kitchen renovation which by the way was pretty awesome. Also, she renovated their dining table also which might have been back of my mind since then, so let's all thank her for this little inspiration!

2017/03/15

This tuna salad has been my go-to salad for this past couple of weeks. It's so simple to make & quick. When storage in the fridge, it lasts for at least three days or so, so it has been super wonderful for the days when J is at work and I'm home with the baby and I need to eat something for lunch.

INGREDIENTS:

- tuna, duh

- salad

- sweet pepper

- cucumber

HOW TO ROLL WITH IT?

Mix all the ingredients together and enjoy your salad.

You can also add some tomatoes and boiled eggs with it if you want to, but I'm not going to. I love it just the way it is haha!

Let me know if you're going to try this out! It's so simple & delicious like I've said a million times. I should get over myself.

2017/03/13

It's time to look back to that faithful weekend when our little baby decided he was ready to come out and quickly dive into this world.

I believe it all started on 25th of February. At the morning, I woke up at 4 and I felt a pain I've never felt before. I was having regular and YES, painful contractions. Finally, this was it. Or that's what I thought. The morning went by counting contractions and packing the hospital bag. Just a typical Saturday morning right? Yeah, I might've left that packing operation to a bit last minute project. Whoops.

The pain I had wasn't that painful. I went to a hot shower and took a couple of painkillers to make me feel better. Well, neither of those worked so very quickly I realised that this really was it. I was excited and I called to the hospital for further instructions. They asked if I was able to stay at home where I answered that I wasn't. I needed something for the pain, at that very second and they asked us to head to the hospital to get checked. I was pretty pissed about the way the nurse spoke to me over the phone. You know when people try to sound calm but they end up speaking to you like you are the baby? With that kind of a tone. It's freaking annoying.

When we arrived at the hospital at the morning, the midwife took us in and we listened to Dino's heartbeat. After listening for a while, the midwife did an internal examination for me and told us that we're not in labour. There was still 2cm cervix left and it was closed. She sent us home with some painkillers and told me to watch TV, eat plenty of food and just relax for the evening.
"We'll see you on Monday or next week or so", she said and we headed home.

That Saturday was pure torture for me. I was feeling awful throughout the whole day and everything I did felt like a huge exercise but only ten times worse. I tried to do everything to keep myself from thinking the pain I had. Although, the pain wasn't that hard but in my mind, I was thinking that if this is not it, how painful will the real thing be. I mean, thanks Dino for letting us watch Who Wants To Be a Millionaire? on that Saturday evening but holy crap it was hard to focus on it.

By 11 on that evening, I was rolling from side to side on our bed thinking that I might die. I didn't sleep at all. I remember thinking that if this isn't the labour what the hell is then? I thought that I had to survive with the pain for a couple of more days and honestly, I didn't love the idea.

Sunday, 26th of February

01:00 - I went to shower. I was sitting on the floor, crying my eyes out and I was ready to die. Or well, not die. I cried because I was in pain and I thought that the labour hadn't started yet because the midwife said so earlier. I didn't believe that it was the real pain. You know, they say "you know when it happens and you need to go to the hospital" - well, I had no clue, oh boy I didn't have a clue.

01:30 - I got out from the shower. I was absolutely exhausted because I had slept only four hours the night before and that night, I didn't sleep at all. I dressed up and tried to get some sleep. I wasn't able to lay down on the bed, so I pushed a couple pillows against the wall and placed myself there.

02:00 - I wasn't able to sleep while I sat there, so I started walking around the apartment. I ended up to our bathroom hugging the washing machine. It was insane. I woke J up and told him that this is happening. It's happening now and we need to go to the hospital, right now. I called the hospital to let them know I was coming down there, no matter what they say because I've tried everything I thought might help at home to ease the pain and none of the methods was working.

03:00 - We checked into the hospital at 3 in the morning and I was placed on bed and we listened to Dino's heartbeat & apparently those plugs had something to do with counting contractions as well. When the midwife got in at the second time while we measured these rates, she brought me hospital clothes saying "yeah, this baby is coming out today" I started to panic. I know, I said I wasn't stressing about the whole labour thing and I still wasn't at that point but hearing those words got me so overwhelmed all I could think about was that we didn't shut down the lights from the kitchen when we left home.

03:15 - I was introduced to gas and air and oh boy I was in heaven. There were a couple of times when I forgot to breathe it in at the right moment so there were a couple of contractions I felt like I was going to die. The gas and air helped me most of the way but I told the midwife that I wanted an epidural at some point if I can't handle the pain.

07:00 - I was 4cm open.

08:28 - I was 6cm open and the midwife called to anaesthesia doctor to get there and place the epidural catheter. That anaesthesia doctor was such a funny guy, though, I mean he needed to place the catheter twice because it went somewhere else on the first try. I thought that would be painful but I was so high from all the meds that I didn't feel a thing.
Also, thanks to my black humour in weird places I remember joking about how dangerous placing that catheter is because it's placed somewhere in the spine or close to it. I mean, who jokes about those things. Well, I do. And apparently, he does too.

09:15 - I was 6cm open and got my epidural.

11:00 - I was 8cm open and I felt a massive pressure between my legs. It was like taking a huge dump but it felt 10 times worse. Especially when the epidural didn't affect at all for me. The baby was coming out and he was coming out quickly.

11:50 - The midwife asked me to go to the bathroom, to pee and I went.
Fun fact: peeing is not something you really want or are able to do at that point of labour and I was not able to do so. I got to the toilet and as soon as I sat there, I wanted to die.

12:00 - I was told I was 10cm open and whenever I felt the pressure I was allowed to push the baby out. The pushing part was the worst and for a couple of good minutes we practised the right method and tried different positions. I started off laying on my left side while the midwife helped me to keep my right leg up. She also asked me not to push her with my leg, because she needed to catch the baby when he comes out. Well, at one point she told me I was pushing her with my leg and I apologised for that. I mean, how many people apologise in that situation? Before all this birthing thing was even accurate, I was sure I would be one of those people who yell like crazy and calls everyone with rude names but no, I'm apologising for pushing the midwife with my leg.

12:37 - The baby was out. It took five contractions and 15 pushes. And that's the part I don't want to ever feel again and where I apparently had two panic attacks.
Or well, I really don't know. J told me that I looked like it and the midwife asked me to calm down. All I can remember is that I thought how dumb that midwife was because she thought I was having a panic attack when I really wasn't. Who knows, it all happened so fast and everything was super hectic.

Thanks to all the medication the midwife was giving to me I didn't feel pain almost at all. Taking them all was the best decision I've ever made, I bet I'd be dead by now if I didn't haha.

When I saw Dino for the very first time my thoughts were "holy crap did that just come out of me?" and "oh my god, that's disgusting." Anyways, that was love at the first sight and I managed to cry a little when he was placed in my arms. Gosh, I created that. We created that. And he was the most beautiful thing I've ever seen, or well - a little gross, but still the most beautiful thing I've ever seen.

Everything went well, although I needed a couple of stitches because the opening process and everything went by so fast. They took me away from my baby for almost four hours and those four hours were the worst hours of my life so far. I was desperate to meet my baby and by 5 pm I reunited with him.

It's so amazing what a body can do.
Holy shit.

After all, I want to thank all the lovely midwives over at Kätilöopisto.
You did such an amazing job.

2017/03/12

As you might be aware, food is pretty damn expensive. It's also something you need every day, in order to stay alive. Energized. You know, feeling okay.

I absolutely love food, I do, but sometimes it keeps annoying me with its price.

I've also noticed, that now when our money is "tight" when I'm living with maternity allowance, we can't go around the food market the way we used to. We can't keep going there every single day & buy things we might want to make our dinner out of and we definitely can't keep making those impulse purchases between the snack shelves. We need to get a grip.

So, how did we decided (yes, we decided this together), to keep ourselves in order?

PLANNING OUR MONTHLY EATS

I did an excel, which I'm very proud of by the way (yes, this is what you get when you haven't been at work for a couple of months). In that excel, I planned out what we're going to have for dinner each day. Now, when Dino is not eating real food yet - his daily eats don't need to be calculated in this yet.

I usually plan our dinners for two weeks and we've decided to stick to the food that's on the list. If there's anything we feel like we would like to have for dinner, we schedule it to the next available week, or swap places with something that has been planned already - but haven't been purchased yet.

We started doing this from the beginning of January and so far it has been working nicely.

WE DID A BUDGET

We did a budget for our monthly eats. We decided we were going to spend 200€ on food per month, which leaves it to 50€/per week. Now, when we have been doing this for a while, we have saved our receipts from the grocery stores and we basically know how much everything costs.

We also decided that if we don't spend the whole 50€ in one week, we can move the rest of that amount into the piggy bank we have for impulse purchases or use it for the next week if we feel like eating something that's fancier. The third option is to keep that money in the piggy bank and go eat out when there's enough money to do so.

So if we play around with our money nicely, we can treat ourselves in a pretty damn delicious restaurant.

GOING TO GROCERY STORE ONLY ONCE OR TWICE A WEEK, INSTEAD OF GOING THERE EVERY DAY

This one was a good decision.

There was this little incident a couple of weeks ago, though, when we ran out of milk. Well, J went to the store and bought some milk. Then in the middle of the cooking, we realised we had run out of aluminium foil too, so J had to go pick some of that too. He came back with baking paper, threw it on the wall and had to go to the store for the third time for that day. It was so hilarious.

But yeah, cutting down our visits to the grocery store have really paid off with us. There are not so many impulse purchases and we get our weekly foods at once. Also, of course, if there's something we run out of - we can go to store more often than two times a week, but then again - we know what we're looking for and leave the store only with that.

WHAT'S MOTIVATING US?

Well, we never have had a struggle with money, to be honest, and if I'm completely honest here, we still don't struggle with money. It's just the fact that now when there's only one person who goes to work every day and has a decent salary our level in the way of living needs to be you know, a bit lower. All of this to just to make sure that we don't struggle with the money in the future.

We also keep making so many impulse purchases during grocery shopping that it's insane. So yeah, that needs to stop haha! You know when you're off to buying yoghurt and you come out with broccoli, cauliflower and carrots for a snack even though you never planned to eat those in the first place? That's me. I do that.

2017/03/10

I honestly can't believe it's March already. Time seems to fly by so fast nowadays. I mean, wasn't it Christmas only a few months ago?

Days are finally starting to get longer and the sun is finally starting to creep away from where-ever it goes to hiding during Winter. Days are starting to get a little bit warmer and birds are starting to sing. What a wonderful world.

I decided to put together a bucket list for Spring, just as a warm up for my Summer bucket list.

2017/03/08

Netflix is such a funny little thing. I've been kind of watching everything that there can be found during my maternity leave. You know, whilst J is at work and before the baby, I really had not that much of things to do at home alone, instead of reading blogs and writing these blog posts. So how did I fill my days? I might've been watching Netflix. A lot. And by a lot, I mean like a lot-lot.

WHITE COLLAR

My co-worker introduced this series to me and oh my goodness, since then - I was obsessed. For starters, Matt Bomer looks hot as hell. He's hot. Even my husband thinks he looks good. And I don't know, maybe I'm just kind of attracted to that whole bad-boy image. But yeah, about the series. I've been loving crime series from... Well, since I can remember and this one really hit me hard whilst I started watching it. It's one of those few series where I don't really have an idea how the episode ends before it ends. I mean, usually I do realise those things in the middle or so, but these guys have done pretty good job with hiding the proper meaning of stuff without ruining the episodes. Love, love & love. Or then again, I might need to watch all the six seasons again if that all was just because of my pregnancy brain. Who knows, I'm loving the series and I highly recommend you to check it out!

JANE THE VIRGIN

We had the second season of this at the early January in our Netflix and I fell in love with the series once again. I don't really know why, but telenovelas have been really close to my heart since Mì Gorda Bella aired over here a decade ago. So yeah, even though this is not a telenovela in its proper meaning, this is really close to it. So much drama and funny scenes in the middle of the fact that the main character gets pregnant even though she has never had sex. Just hear me out and try this one out!

OPEN HEART

I truly hate the fact that there's only one season of this series. It ended up in such a cliffhanger and I can't wait to have more episodes to it.

2017/03/06

Everything went well, although the delivery was a bit too quick for the epidural to catch up. Despite the epidural, the whole experience was absolutely wonderful. I'll get back to that later when I've got some time to actually write about it haha! Also, there's a thing or two I'd like to mention about breastfeeding so stay tuned for those.

Now, I'm going to enjoy these newborn days and smell the baby on each second I've got.

2017/03/05

I absolutely love our living room at the moment. A couple of weeks ago, we decided to get rid of our Ikea Kallax shelf we used as a tv desk and we placed it to a different location. To replace the Kallax we used two pallets which we got from my friend and the whole look is completely different. Kind of hipster, though, haters gonna hate - but I'm absolutely loving it.

There's a story behind this carpet.

Once upon a time, we moved to a new apartment. A larger one, so we could have room enough for our growing little family. We used to have the most annoying carpet in our living room, so to make our lives easier, I sold it to my mum. Then we were left with no carpet in our living room.

As being ones that love everything cosy, we decided to keep our eyes peeled for any carpets that would look appealing to our eyes. Then became the day when we found the one. We decided to go for it, it was expensive - but aren't they all expensive? A carpet in the living room should be something you won't get bored of. Something you don't want to change in a blink of the eye next month. This was it, we knew it was.

We ordered the carpet just to find out, they had gone out of stock so all we could do was to take our money back and start looking for a new carpet. It started to annoy us, we wanted that carpet. Or well, I wanted - J just agreed that this would look great on our living room floor.

Then became the day when they got back in stock again. In no time, we ordered one and it arrived just before Christmas. Good things come to those who wait right?

The carpet is from fermLiving.

What do you think of our living room? In my personal opinion, I think we should place something on our walls but for some reason, we haven't had the time to do so haha.

Jasmin

mum to a beautiful baby boy and four guinea pigs. wife to the love of her life. in her twenties from Western-Finland living the life in Helsinki. writing about her life, passions and little things. sometimes she pretends to be a pineapple, but that's okay. // New posts each Monday, Wednesday, Friday & Sunday at 8AM (GMT +02:00)